17 April 2006
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From the Editor…
Welcome to the New Statesman website. Whether you are a new reader or an existing one - online or via the magazine - I hope you'll enjoy the great writing, fresh ideas and provocative debate that make the New Statesman Britain's award-winning current affairs weekly
Cover story
Iran: don't let it happen
"To me it would be a worse crime to stay silent if telling the truth could prevent war."
Features
The Euston Manifesto
It started with some like-minded progressives meeting in a London pub. Disenchanted with what they saw as the wrong-headed thinking of the anti-war movement, they began to talk of a new left movement
Heroes of our time
Vote for your modern-day hero in our special New Statesman survey
Voice of America's left
Right-wing shock jocks have dominated talk radio in the US for years. Not any more
NS Special Report - The eternal winter
The fate of thousands was decided by a Soviet official with a pair of compasses. The renowned Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov visits Chernobyl two decades after the world’s worst nuclear disaster
Essay
'Joe, I suspect, has no sense at all that he was born, or will die'
Our ideas about people who are severely disabled raise tough questions of what it means to be human. Michael Blastland introduces us to his autistic son
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
This time we need the complete truth
With a conventional, if not nuclear, strike in prospect, we have an absolute right to know the extent of Iran’s weapons capability
The Politics Column
The politics column - Martin Bright
The debate about how best to tackle inequality is everywhere and it is precisely the discussion the Labour Party should be having
The Politics Column
The medium column - Peter Wilby
The press once dedicated enormous space to the aristocracy. Now we have a different elite, covering the worlds of press, TV, public relations, publishing and politics
Kira Cochrane rekons two in a marriage is enough
A future in which a man might marry his sister, his mother and his Labrador? Yikes! But realistically, it's baloney
John Pilger sees freedom die quietly
The bill marks the end of true parliamentary democracy; it is as significant as Congress abandoning the Bill of Rights
Michela Wrong tracks sleaze to its source
Britain has a pretty spotty record when it comes to what is termed the "supply side" of sleaze
Competition
Win vouchers to spend in any Tesco store
Culture
Small town boy
We are used to thinking of Rembrandt van Rijn as Holland's greatest painter, yet as a young man he wasn't even the top artist in the small town of Leiden. William Cook revisits the master's early struggles
All barre none
Ballet - Paul Webb finds that a notoriously elite art form has a surprisingly diverse history
Community chest
Arts funding - John Holden on the unusual charitable foundation that has made Britain a better place
Radio
Radio - Rachel Cooke
Some things in life are bigger than all of us. One of these things is Meat Loaf
Theatre
Martyr act
Theatre - A superb portrait of enforced intimacy makes us suffer as much as laugh, writes Michael Portillo Smaller Lyric Theatre, London W1
Film
Suicide machine
Film - A powerful tale of West Bank bombers offers bleak insights, writes Victoria Segal Paradise Now (15)
Television
All in a lather
Television - The feel-good age meets retribution in a slick new soap, writes Andrew Billen The Street (BBC1)
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies gets out of the closet
Arsenal may be foreign scum, but I still want them to win in Europe
Books
Down to earth
In recent years, Seamus Heaney's imagination has taken flight from the soil in poems of the air. Now, writes Clive Wilmer, he has returned to the original source of his inspiration District and Circle Seamus Heaney Faber & Faber, 96pp, £12.99 ISBN 0571230962
The common reader
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel: what to read and how to write Jane Smiley Faber & Faber, 608pp, £16.99 ISBN 1400040590
The Asbo effect
Yob Nation: the truth about Britain's yob culture Francis Gilbert Portrait, 292pp, £10.99 ISBN 074995101X
The American scene
In the land of opportunity, everyone can get rich - and there are plenty of bestsellers telling you how
Minds over matter
Radical Thinkers Various authors Verso, £6 each
Pile 'em high
Reluctant Capitalists: bookselling and the culture of consumption Laura J Miller University of Chicago Press, 328pp, £22.50 ISBN 0226525902
Shaking things up
Electricity Ray Robinson Picador, 320pp, £10.99 ISBN 0330444506
